Old G.I. Joe Debates...

[Swindle]

Yeah, I think both live action efforts are 2 star-ish efforts. I think movie 2 probably has better action scenes. But the casting is so wrong in both efforts and I can't point to a single stand out performance.

Black Ripcord is an interesting thing as this Scarlett thing with him isn't anywhere else in Joe lore as far as I can see.

Baroness/CC as family, I don't like it. The reason being, I'd rather Baroness being radicalized on her own.

Best pro wrestler movie performance... Piper in They Live, as an aside. IMO. Rock, there's a corny thing about him that makes it tough for me to buy him as Roadblock.

Back to Cobra Commander, as Rex he's in the background and incredibly cruel in his work. That's why I prefer movie 1 over movie 2 because at least his scenes add some flavor to a bland action movie. Reminds me a bit of Old Snake in Transformers. He's incognito and can do his schemes in the shadows.

[Felix]

Can't forget the Duke and Baroness romance

[Bravo]

"Sorry, Destro, you're out of the band." Eccelston as Destro was bad casting. Why choose an actor known for distancing himself from genre roles he's taken (making sequel appearances unlikely), bad mouthing projects he's been part of?

Firefly, why are you a redneck? Funny, the actor was a Brit.

Zartan, fairly good casting, but it's overshadowed by him being Johnathan Pryce the whole second movie.

I'm tired of the female villain not really being evil thing. Evil Baroness is fun, reformed Baroness is not. I was never crazy about Catwoman being an anti-hero, either.

I liked Heavy Duty, except he's just that character in name only, since Heavy Duty was always American.

Why kill off Cover-Girl?

Dennis Quaid as Hawk was good casting.

I liked the Neo-Viper as human killing machines, even if the whole MARS troop designs were too sci-fi and Elite Vipers and Eels (I forget they are in the movie) look like Snake-Eyes.

We needed more Dr. Mindbender, but with Summers not doing the sequel that was unlikely.

[Swindle]

Destro looked like a wimp and that killed him as a character for me. Very similar to Doctor Doom in the F4 Alba attempts. Just do Destro like he was done in the cartoon. Imposing brute with a voice to match, forget about proper accents.

[Felix]

Baroness and Destro as a couple was something both the cartoon and comic agreed on.

I concur about Dennis Quaid's role as Hawk.

Wasn't the Baroness Cobra Commanders brother or something too?

I appreciate what they did with Destro's family history story in the beginning had me excited for the movie.

Snake Eyes vs Storm Shadow...as kids... I think it was at this point I realized the movie creators did not read the comic.

Killing Covergirl... for shock value is lame.
That, and they almost never did anything with her and played a very minor role in the comic and cartoon, so these fan fic writers feel like they can kill off characters if they want.
Same reason Resolute killed Bazooka... and Major Bludd.

The previews for the sequel made Firefly look cool.

Snake Eyes verses Red Ninjas was epic.

Storm Shadow frequent mask and shirt removal, kind of silly.

Who was the old woman healing him? Maybe mom or grandma?

I was glad they had Blind Master. Not the best academy winning performance,
but I think they were trying to show die-hard fans, don't worry, this time, they read the comic.

The sequel I can accept the Rock as Roadblock, no problem.
He's not the Roadblock I pictured in the 80's growing up, but I can buy it.
I think he did a great job. I can accept some of his other movie roles as extensions of his character.
"Walking Tall" and "The Rundown" feel like G.I. JOE stories that would work with Roadblocks character.

Killing Duke was just a nod to the 1987 movie in my mind.

I feel like Flint wasn't even in it.

Oh yeah, and Bruce Willis is G.I. JOE.
So now when I watch Die Hard and John Mclain says, "Yippie-kay-yay muther--"
I can yell "YO! JOE!"

[Swindle]

I think Bazooka was killed in some version of an IDW comic as well. Some toon fans took the 2 deaths as a knock against Sunbow.

Cover Girl in the movie was basically General Hawk's personal assistant. I wasn't a fan of the portrayal and the figure looked harsh, but I think if you shave the hair down a bit (which I never did), it makes it look better. Prefer the bossy portrayal in Sunbow.

Bruce Willis was mailing it in as "Joe", imo.

[Felix]

I did like the scene where he gives the Joe's the guns he's got hidden all over the house.

But I honestly don't remember him in the rest of the movie, except for that one scene they played over and over in the previews with him shooting in the back of a car while it was turning.

[Bravo]

Falcon should've been in the movie...

[Swindle]

So, I'm watching The Funhouse yesterday. Cobra Commander takes the Joes weapons when they enter his 'funhouse.' At the end of the ep, Lady Jaye have her Javelin and backpack back as they are riding the roller coaster to escape to the outside. How'd she get it back? I suppose the answer is she got it back off screen while Cobra Commander was distracted by Flint. One of my lowkey favorite moments in this ep is Alpine pulling out his Joe credit card and annoying Cobra Commander.

The next episode is 20 Questions and you hear Cover Girl tell the war games to stop because of the reporters from the air in a Sky Hawk. You briefly see her on the battle field. I think the voice actress is also doing the Cobra announcements in the underground base. This also the ep that starts RodZD's ship of CG/SW as the trope of her chasing him starts here.

Two fun enjoyable eps. The animation is well done in these as well and plenty of Sunbow mainstays get featured. I remember showing my step sister 20 Questions years ago and she really liked Spirit in the rec room scene where he starts making his Spirit-like statements.

[Bravo]

IIRC, the Cover Girl voice actress was in "tonight's movie..." being announced, an inside joke of some sort. Or not, as I can find no evidence that was a real movie and Liz Aubrey's IMDB page lists nothing similar.

In regards to 20 Questions' scheme, someone pointed out, maybe it Something Awful's after action report, that "explosive gas" is just NATURAL GAS. Not hard to find.

Cobra self-defeats in that one because the Baroness' disguise unintentionally causes Shipwreck to investigate the Rockies on his own. Otherwise, Cobra would've pulled off the heist uninterrupted. Or maybe not.

Funhouse has a rare HISS Driver appearance and uses Zap. Those are both pluses. That and showing kids how to use extra Cobra Commanders...as robots.

[Felix]

Funhouse:
Alpines credit card joke is the funniest line ever :-)

It's also worth noting Bazooka actually gets shot in the head!
Yes, he's wearing his helmet, and it saves him, but fans would say nobody ever got shot in the cartoon.
And he is quite possibly the only person to ever get shot in the entire series?
I can't think of anyone, any other time.
Alpine gets really pissed Bazooka got hurt.

The island blowing up looks like an atom bomb went off.

I like the Cobra Commander clowns that pop out of the Jack in the boxes.

Dusty really trips out from the gas.
His hallucinations of Airtight turning into Cobra Commander and then turning into a bunch of snakes was pretty graphic.

[Swindle]

Airtight has some really good moves avoiding those Cobra Commander/Jack in the Boxes.

[Felix]

Was Shockwave really intended as a Cobra?

[Bravo]

I thought it was Beach-Head that began designs as a Cobra?

[Felix]

I just wanted to say this episode doesn't quite feel like just a parallel universe, but a possible future.

At the @16:10 mark, they're going over the roster of deceased Joe's,

Flash, KIA in the comic.
Doc, KIA in the comic.
Blowtorch
Duke KIA in Retaliation film.
Bazooka, KIA in Resolute.
Breaker, KIA in the comic.


I always loved Clutches response, "How?! Why?!" It's such a somber emotional moment.